Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Twitter is going to make it easier to cram more characters into tweets. Good.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Twitter announced today that it is going to tweak its platform such that links, photos, and other media no longer count against the 140 character limit. That’s a great idea, and really they ought to go further and make it possible for tweets of arbitrary length to appear — even if the main feed only displays a short introduction.

This right here is why:

Speaking as someone who loves Twitter and who worries about the fact that it is failing in stock market terms, I think this is a sign of why bringing back Jack Dorsey as CEO was ultimately a good idea. Simply put, a founder has the standing and clout to make this kind of fundamental change, whereas Dick Costolo never did.

My main fear is simply that it’s too little, too late at this point. The Twitter product has been very slow to evolve over the years. To this day, the company seems to be having trouble rolling out new features like polls to the full suite of Twitter apps — TweetDeck doesn’t have polls yet, for example — and really making Twitter a home to natively supported longer-form essays is something they should have done a year ago or more.

Update: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made a similar argument in his own tweet:

Culture
Why Easter never became a big secular holiday like ChristmasWhy Easter never became a big secular holiday like Christmas
Culture

Hint: The Puritans were involved.

By Tara Isabella Burton
Future Perfect
OpenAI accidentally built one of the world’s richest charities. Now what?OpenAI accidentally built one of the world’s richest charities. Now what?
Future Perfect

The battle over what OpenAI owes the public.

By Sara Herschander
The Highlight
We’re in an economic boom. Where are the jobs?We’re in an economic boom. Where are the jobs?
The Highlight

AI is sending stocks soaring, rich people are spending big, and hiring is at a crawl. Here’s why.

By Heather Long
Technology
What podcasts do to our brainsWhat podcasts do to our brains
Podcast
Technology

I quit podcasts for a month and discovered a new reality.

By Adam Clark Estes
Podcasts
Why are there so many billionaires nowadays?Why are there so many billionaires nowadays?
Podcast
Podcasts

And what, if anything, should be done about it?

By Avishay Artsy and Noel King
Podcasts
The insidious strategy behind Nick Fuentes’s shocking riseThe insidious strategy behind Nick Fuentes’s shocking rise
Podcast
Podcasts

How a neo-Nazi infiltrated so deep into the Republican Party.

By Hady Mawajdeh and Noel King